Weekly Supplement BS Report #5

Glutamine: Keep it or Crap It

“Glutamine is a key factor in muscle growth, and controlling the skeletal muscle/whole body glutamine gradient is critical in maintaining and building muscle tissue.* The higher the muscle glutamine levels you can maintain, the less chance you have of falling into catabolism and the faster muscle will grow.*”
- AST GL3 description

“Following an intense workout your body needs to replenish glutamine stores to aid in recovery.* L-Glutamine can help increase muscle cell hydration and aid in protein synthesis.”
- EAS L-Glutamine description

“70% of it never reaches muscle tissue and 90% of it is gone in 1 hour, leaving you with a low dosed short supply of Glutamine. The end result is very little anabolic activity and can actually lead to catabolic muscle wasting because you’re relying on your glutamine supplement to supply and replenish the glutamine needed and it just isn’t delivering.”
-MHP Glutamine-SR description

Why so many people have fallen in love with this amino acid, I’ll never know. Maybe because it’s the most abundant amino acid within the muscle? Or maybe it’s because the supplement manufacturers have led us to believe that it not only helps prevent muscle breakdown, but it also improve muscle synthesis, aka the double whammy of muscle hypertrophy? Or just maybe it’s because one study found oral glutamine to increase growth hormone 4 fold? Who knows. And honestly, how could you not want this supplement in your arsenal after reading the above claims. Even yours truly went through 4000g before finally retiring it to the BS files.

Anabolic Potential

Over the last few years, it’s become blatantly obvious its anabolic benefits were grossly exaggerated. (some may even call the claims a bold-faced lie) The current research just doesn’t support any anabolic/anti-catabolic benefits. So now the question becomes, does it have any potential benefits for athletes/weightlifters?
And the quick answer for those that suffer from ADHD: absolutely not. Unless of course, you’re an 80lb marathon runner with less muscle mass than a 5 year-old girl.

Glutamine and the Immune system

Let me explain.
Glutamine’s proposed immune-enhancing ability is probably its most sought after benefit (after the anabolic/anti-catabolic claim of course). And coincidentally, that claim also has the most research supporting it. That’s until you actually look closer at the studies. It seems as though the supplement manufacturers extrapolated data from a few positive studies that were done on rats, critically-ill patients, and patients with various muscle-wasting diseases, and marketed those results toward healthy, muscular trainees, all while ignoring the studies that actually related to this group that showed little if any benefit. Apples and oranges my friends. Apples and oranges!
Yes, it’s true that leukocytes (a key component of the immune system) need glutamine to function properly. It’s also true that leukocytes can’t synthesize glutamine like the muscle can. And it’s also very likely true that a severely low plasma glutamine level probably results in a depressed immune system (you’re more likely to get sick).
However, that doesn’t mean glutamine will benefit us. Why? Because it’s false that an intense weightlifting session lasting less than an hour will decrease plasma glutamine levels low enough to depress the immune system. In fact, the large majority of research suggests that it’s long, intense aerobic exercise lasting over 2 hours that leads to low levels of plasma glutamine. It’s also false that an overtrained athlete with low plasma glutamine levels will be more susceptible to infection. And on the very same note, it’s false that an intake of oral glutamine will prevent exercise-induced immune depression even though it will raise plasma glutamine levels.

The Result

So would you or I benefit from a $30 container of glutamine powder? Not a chance. The only athlete that could possibly benefit from oral glutamine supplementation would be a marathon/cyclist/ironman-type athlete. Then, just maybe, it may improve an overworked immune system.
By the way, if you’re interested in its ability to improve glycogen synthesis, just consume more carbs. It was one study, and they only used 61g of carbs. You’ll save a lot more money and get identical results.

And the congregation said…… B_LLSH_T